Posted by Captin Cannuck on July 31, 2008 at 20:27:37:Here is some information from previous forums concerning the cost of MMA+GA. This info is less than two years old. This is what other posters wrote on that topic...
2006
On February 07, 2006, Insurance warrior wrote: "In Arkansas My MMA is $14,000 surgeon $20,000 hospital .I believe Stanford quoted me $40,000 for hospital alone. My doc said blue cross is the worst payor because they use the medicade rate of $1500 for mma, Cigna was very close to the surgeons rates but they discount the 2nd through 5th procedures by 50% like all insurance companies. So I took the surgeons advice and chose Cidna over Blue Cross as my wife's employeer had several choices."http://www.sleepnet.com/noncpap19/messages/252.html
2007
On May 10th, 2007 Sleepronin asked the question who had had MMA. He wanted to know how much an MMA would cost a person who did not have insurance who had to pay out of his pocket. A lot of people shared the prices that they had been billed or their insurance company had been billed. What follows are the exact answers to that he got. People are writing in Forum 21 in May of 2007 only one year ago:a) MikeinBoston said :
"My student health insurance covered mine. I think insurance paid out 50,000. Fees for surgeon were much lower because of the negotiated rates with the Hospital. My advice? Get health insurance. 18 states cannot reject you based on previous medical onditions...WOrth looking into. Also, for Dirty Water...You are paying fees inflated by about 26,000 because you do not have insurance. You may want to try to negotiate down. Mike
http://www.sleepnet.com/noncpap21/messages/488.htmlb) rkf said:
"The total cost for mine was $29k but I did not require braces before or after, I had the GA as a stand alone procedure abou 8 months earlier and I had it done in a clinic instead of a hospital so I didn't have the ICU costs. There was only one nurse, the primary facial recontructive surgeon and another surgeon on fellowship who acted as anesthitist (he had also performed or assisted in over 300 MMAs). I was pretty lucky, don't think I could run across another deal like that."
http://www.sleepnet.com/noncpap21/messages/482.htmlc) YBLIKEMEE said:
"I just received what I think are my final bills and so far its $46,222.76 for the surgeron, hospital plus my braces were $1370.00 which makes the total $47,592.76. I only have to pay for the braces and my $2000 deductible. All I can say is that is was well worth the money"
http://www.sleepnet.com/noncpap21/messages/475.htmld) sickntired said:
had MMA and genioplasty with Dr. KL at Stanford and it was roughly 45K alone for the surgeons fees. I recently had a GA with Dr. R / Dr. P at Stanford and I believe their fees are slightly less. Dr. KL is in private practice (but they are both the best). United Healthcare paid for everything almost 100%...but they did not offer to by themselves; it took work.
http://www.sleepnet.com/noncpap21/messages/477.html2008
e) Bobmisteer said that his MMA had cost 120,000. He said "the insurance does not pay
the amount billed. I think they paid about 60k."
http://www.sleepnet.com/noncpap23/messages/690.htmlf) Sturmer said:
"The dust is still settling but it looks like mine was $120k. Of course
insurance massively hacked that down to a 4th or less but that was
what insurance says it was billed for."
http://www.sleepnet.com/noncpap23/messages/709.html
CONCLUSIONS:It seems that there is a very wide range of prices charged for the MMA+GA operation. It seems that if you do not have insurance you can possibly negotiate with the surgeon. If an insurance company is involved the surgeon would charge more. Of course you would pay much less because the insurance company would be covering a portion of the bill.
Best of luck.